Cold Relations (Honey Laird Book 1)

by Gerald Hammond

  There was a moment of stunned silence on the line, but Superintendent Dedridge had seen her at work before. ‘I’ll have to ask Edinburgh for help.’

  ‘I doubt if you’ll get much in a hurry. They have four houses to search there and I think they’ve drawn off what there is of your local CID to participate. Please, Superintendent, see if you can find me several intelligent officers from the uniformed branch.’

  She heard him sigh. ‘Honey, I hope you know what you’re doing. How sure are you?’

  When she came to think of it, she was stirring up the whole ants’ nest on the basis of some high quality but definitely erotic underwear. She said that she was sure, while praying that he was not going to ask the crucial question. But she had got on very well with Superintendent Dedridge during her first stint in Newton Lauder and again when cases had brought her back to the small town. She thought that he rather fancied her and probably fantasised about her when he was alone, which was quite acceptable as long as he did nothing to pursue his fantasy. A little erotic imagining in somebody else’s mind did her no harm.

  ‘I know you wouldn’t go off half-cocked,’ he said at last.

  ‘Certainly not, sir,’ she said, infusing her voice with sincerity. ‘One other thing. I’m supposed to be taking two witnesses to Edinburgh about a different case. Would you let Superintendent Blackhouse know that I’m held up here. I’ll send the witnesses in with DS Bryant and for the moment I can be reached only on this number. As soon as I can move, I’ll be available on my mobile.’

  She disconnected and found that her hand was shaking. She was quite used to thinking of more than one thing at a time, but this was definitely Over The Top. Her mobile might not be working but at least it could be used to remind her of the phone numbers she wanted. At Tinnisbeck Castle, Hazel Carpenter answered the phone.

  ‘I’m held up on another case. Would you mind conveying Detective Sergeant Bryant to Edinburgh? He can direct you. How many would your Porsche carry?’

  ‘We do have another car,’ Hazel said.

  ‘In that case, perhaps you’d also carry another witness with you. Hannah Phillipson. Put the sergeant on, please. Hullo?’

  DS Bryant’s voice came on the line. ‘Hullo. What can I do for you?’

  ‘You go into Edinburgh with the Carpenters.’

  ‘In your car?’

  ‘No, not in my car. In their car. But come here first and collect Miss Phillipson. Perhaps I’m wronging her, but Miss Phillipson might be tempted to make life difficult by warning somebody, so keep her away from a phone until you hear from me.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  The self-satisfaction in his voice made her want to say that he’d bloody well better, but she restrained herself. ‘Get going as soon as the Carpenters are ready,’ she said. She disconnected. Her mouth had gone dry at the thought of being wrong and having to explain how she had come to leap to the wrong conclusion. She turned to Hannah, who was looking mildly amused. ‘You can move around now,’ she said. ‘And I think we could all do with a cup of tea.’

  Hannah got up. ‘You could have trusted me,’ she said.

  ‘I expect so,’ Honey said. ‘But I had to be sure.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Within fifteen minutes, the Carpenters’ dark green Volvo arrived at the door. Warning Gemma Kendal to make no attempt to escape on pain of unspecified sanctions, Honey unplugged the phone and took it with her as she accompanied Hannah outside. Hannah’s smiling but unhelpful parting words to her erstwhile friend were, ‘I told you it was Friday the thirteenth,’ to which Gemma replied by calling the other a fatarsed bitch. It seemed that relations that had already been cold between the two had now become arctic, which in turn suggested that Hannah’s testimony might be freely given but perhaps not without bias.

  There are no rules against a simple business transaction with a witness, so she drew Hannah aside for a few moments to enquire the price if the remaining piece of silk were to be made up from the patterns but to her measurements when unpregnant. A deal was struck. The price seemed to Honey to be quite favourable. Hannah must have been in a good mood at the prospect of being rid of her inconvenient companion and having the undivided attention of Johnny Cruikshank.

  Returning to the house secretly smiling at having a delightful extravagance in prospect, and one whose cost Sandy could not possibly guess, she invited Gemma to make a clean breast of it. The invitation was rejected in two short words, only one of which would have been suitable for use in polite company.

  Superintendent Dedridge must have been pulling out all the stops. The Volvo was hardly out of sight before a Vauxhall from Traffic arrived bringing two other officers, one of them a tough-looking female sergeant. Honey was happy to deliver the sulky Miss Kendal to them along with a warning that no phone-calls were to be permitted until further notice.

  Almost a further hour passed before the arrival of a large Ford laden with constables under the charge of another sergeant, this time a man with a moustache. It also brought Constable Picton, with Dancer. The delay allowed her time, while treating Pippa to a quick but overdue walk, to plunge again into uncertainty. Identical silk could easily have been brought back in the suitcase of some other tourist who would then have been mad not to choose top-of-the-range patterns. Only the recollection of Gemma’s attitude reassured her. Surely only the guilty would behave that way. But guilty of what?

  She began the search of the house and found and admired Gemma’s copies of the silken underwear, carefully laundered and folded in tissue paper, but a spare part of her mind was busily fretting over innocent reasons why Gemma Kendal might have bolted to the phone. The new arrivals took her mind off it by demanding orders as to what they were to look for and where. They also passed a message that she was to get down to the village as soon as possible to instruct another group which would arrive there within the next half hour, or an hour at the most. At least her memory was working satisfactorily. She was able to reproduce the list of goodies stolen from Hollington House almost word for word. She told them to look absolutely everywhere. And if either John Cruikshank or Pat Kerr, or any other male unable to account for himself, should turn up, he and his vehicle were to be searched while he was to be held incommunicado. She also stressed that the house was the home of a presumably innocent witness whose evidence would be valuable in two separate cases. The house should not be thoughtlessly damaged or unnecessarily disturbed but should be left as tidy as when they entered it, or preferably tidier.

  The sergeant seemed to know what he was doing. She warned him that he was in a dead area for radio and that if they needed her they could use the landline phone to reach Control, who could then pass a message via her mobile, or phone her mobile direct.

  Once she could be sure that no hole or corner of the house or outbuildings would be missed, she drove the few miles to the village. She could see little for a trained dog to do at the smallholding whereas there might well be a man to arrest in the village; and if Superintendent Dedridge was getting desperate, her next reinforcements might have been culled from the typing pool. In the village, there was no sign yet of the promised officers, of Pat Kerr or of the baker’s van. She parked outside the pub. She found Ian Argyll behind the bar but, on hearing what she wanted, Ian handed over the duty to a woman in a floral pinny and came outside with her. It took him only a few seconds to release the catch on one of the sash-and-case windows and climb inside. Another half minute saw him relock the window and emerge through the front door. She slipped inside.

  The message on the answerphone was short and to the point. That policewoman’s here again, said Gemma’s voice. She suspects something, maybe everything. Pick me up at the corner of Gled Wood and don’t forget to bring the goodies.

  Little though she liked being referred to as ‘that policewoman’, she felt a huge glow of relief. Those few words confirmed that she was on the right track. Examination of the machine showed it to be the type with a small cassette of tape, which she im
pounded.

  Leaving the door on the latch, she returned to the pub. Suddenly she was hungry. Her car outside the door should be a sufficient indication to her colleagues of where to find her. Lunchtime was almost over and the bar emptying of its few customers but she persuaded the woman in the floral pinny to provide her with a large portion of lasagne, which she started with relish while watching from a front window. She had made little impression on her lasagne before a people-carrier pulled up at the door.

  Hurrying out, she found an elderly inspector from Traffic, two female constables and a civilian employee. Superintendent Dedridge was indeed scraping the bottom of a very limited barrel, but the inspector was rather looking forward to a change of responsibilities. The good worker makes use of the tools to hand and at least they had been provided with overalls. She led them to Pat Kerr’s house and set them to searching. Regardless of creases to her own tailor-made wool suit, she borrowed a set of overalls from Ian Argyll and joined in.

  In one sense the work went well; in the other, it was a disaster. Every corner of every cupboard was examined. Each possible container was opened. Surfaces were studied in the hope of seeing signs of secret hidey-holes. The garden was examined carefully, but if the goods had been buried the weeds had been carefully replanted on top. Her spirits fell. Either the haul had already been fenced or it was hidden somewhere else. There were miles of winter-vacant fields around where a short-term interment would be safe. Or, of course, the pair was innocent. Perhaps that phone message referred to something completely different, something of which Honey as yet knew nothing, and the wicked were fleeing when Honey was not in fact pursuing.

  The only possibly compromising item found was locked in a cupboard, the lock of which yielded to amateurish picking. It was a double-barrelled shotgun of Spanish make, almost exactly as described by Julian Blakelove. Word from the smallholding, relayed from Newton Lauder, reported that nothing whatever had been found. When another call advised her that Pat Kerr had been intercepted by a traffic car when he had already finished his round and was now on the way home, her feelings of anxiety only increased. She might even be right in all her assumptions but her head would be just as surely on the block if she could not come up with some supporting evidence.

  Another message came through Newton Lauder and her spirits recovered a little. The premier fence in Glasgow, who was being interrogated about some stolen Japanese pornography, had attempted to curry favour by revealing that he had been approached, only the day before, with an anonymous enquiry as to whether he would be interested in Mrs Blakelove’s jewellery. He claimed to have indignantly denied any interest but his story was backed up by enough circumstantial detail to compel belief.

  The baker’s van, preceded by a traffic car, drew up at the door. Pat Kerr was escorted into the house. The traffic car was driven hastily away to resume its patrols – which was understandable, she thought. With so many of the traffic and other uniformed personnel being tied up helping her, Superintendent Dedridge must be hard put to it to cover all of his considerable area of responsibility.

  Pat Kerr was predictably angry, though Honey could see definite signs that he was playing it up. She interviewed him in the kitchen with the traffic inspector present. Kerr wanted his solicitor summoned. Very well, Honey said bravely, call him. He was totally innocent, he insisted, and knew nothing about any robbery and was barely acquainted with Gemma Kendal. The shotgun was properly recorded on his certificate.

  As his protestations continued, she became ever more certain that he was lying. He had begun to sweat. His eyes met hers at the wrong moments and the small movements of his hand ceased just when she was sure that he had departed from the truth. It was only when he thumped the table and kept reiterating that she had found nothing, nothing, that her mind slipped into overdrive again. There was one place yet to be searched.

  ‘I am going to take you into custody,’ she said. ‘I’ll see that the van gets returned to your employer.’ He prepared to speak but then clamped his jaw shut. ‘Shall I give the leftover loaves to your pig?’ she asked.

  His face changed, switching suddenly from macho to pathetic. ‘I’ll do a deal,’ he said.

  ‘No deals. You have nothing left to deal with. Come outside.’ Her only set of handcuffs had gone in to Newton Lauder gracing Gemma Kendal’s wrists. She led the way out, keeping a close eye on her suspect. Kerr’s dog was beside the driver’s seat of the van, in defiance of the rules of hygiene but presumably to protect the day’s takings. The dog had met Honey before and perhaps recognised her as an authority figure. It came out peacefully enough and was put on a spare lead. Holding the dog, Honey sent in the visiting traffic inspector and the civilian employee. Pat Kerr was now sweating heavily and showing signs of panic. There was no secure vehicle handy for confining him so she kept hold of him. The van, they reported, had been swept clean but at the back on a low shelf were several loaves. They brought one out to her and she rapped it with her knuckles. It was as hard as concrete.

  The traffic inspector, who was getting into the spirit of the hunt, suggested opening one of the loaves which showed signs of tampering.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But not a large white – there are two paintings that could be rolled up inside but they couldn’t put it back in the oven without risking the paintings. Try the small wholegrain.’ She handed over the prisoner to the traffic inspector and broke open the small loaf on the tailboard of the van. It was found to contain two necklaces, two bracelets and a selection of rings.

  In the moment of triumph the little group focused on the gems. It was Pat Kerr’s chance. He jerked his sleeve out of the traffic inspector’s hand and bolted. Honey grabbed for his arm, and missed. He hurdled the nearest fence and set off across the grassy field towards a thick wood. Most of the party dashed after him but it was immediately clear that Kerr had a fine turn of speed that the representatives of law and order, being sedentary or older, were quite unable to match.

  Honey and Constable Picton were accustomed to having their pursuits done for them by those bred and trained for it. The two dogs were in the back of the Range Rover, only a few yards away. Honey lost her grip on the lead holding Kerr’s dog but it took only a second or two for Pippa and Dancer to join the party. They saw the receding figures. They received the word of command. And they were off. It was neck and neck.

  ‘A fiver on it?’ Picton said.

  Honey felt that she had to back her own runner although a Labrador bitch was ill matched against a male German shepherd. ‘You’re on.’

  The chase was on in earnest. Kerr’s dog tried to jump the fence but the lead was caught up and it was held there, yelping and barking in turns. Figures were spread over the field. Pippa and Dancer recognised the furthest figure as the fugitive and tore between the stragglers. Honey recognised for the first time what the poet had meant by the rapture of pursuing.

  At first the German shepherd took the lead and Honey resigned herself to the loss of her fiver. A hare rose up from under Kerr’s feet and Pippa, who had very definite ideas about hares, looked set to tear after it, but she decided that the man was a more attainable or a more worthy subject of the chase and returned her attention to the original quarry. Dancer was well ahead but at the last moment he trod on a sharp stone and limped almost to a halt. Pippa dashed ahead. Kerr looked over his shoulder, saw a large, black dog bearing down on him and tried to put on a spurt, but he trod on a loose clod, his ankle turned and he fell headlong.

  Honey was handicapped by wearing the wrong shoes. When she came up, breathing heavily, Pippa was sprawled across Kerr’s chest and licking his face with a huge, wet Labrador tongue.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Though she was elated by a successful day, as her exhilaration wore off Honey had to admit to herself that she was tired out. A day spent doing everybody’s thinking for them, while at the same time expecting disaster and humiliation, followed by the letdown from the adrenaline rush had exhausted her. She could have borro
wed the same bed again from Deborah and Ian Fellowes, but she had already said her farewells and duty still called. Moreover, she was longing for a return to her own home and her own bed with her own husband.

  It was some little time before she could turn the Range Rover in the direction of Edinburgh. First, she had to reverse her activities of the day. The two houses had to be left lockfast, the officers returned whence they came, Pat Kerr formally charged and delivered to the custody officer for onward transmission to HQ in Fettes Avenue and she had to thank Superintendent Dedridge for his unprecedented degree of cooperation. She also had to prepare a brief report on the day’s occurrences, skipping lightly over the skimpy evidence on which she had made her moves but leaning heavily on the evidence now available.

  Luckily the Range Rover was equipped with a hands-free telephone kit. As she drove, she tried to reach Ian Fellowes, but he was still busy with the witnesses and suspects in the case of Henry Colebrook’s strange death. She left a message asking him to call her back. Then she phoned home. Sandy had not yet arrived but his plane had landed. He had phoned June to say that he was ravenous and would very soon be home and in need of a meal. She gave June a message for him. She would be late and she might be busy on the next day, so he could fix himself up with a day’s golf if he wished. On Sunday she would be his and would expect him to be unequivocally hers. She disconnected. The light rain had resumed, making driving into the dark against the lights of commuter traffic a penance. She would not have fancied golf on the morrow, but the weather might change and anyway men were different. They enjoyed getting cold and wet and muddy, she told herself. It was what they were for.